CyanogenMod Installer for Mac enters public beta

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Despite having been pulled from the Google Play Store, the Cyanogen team has continued to refine and develop their One Click installer. Starting today, the public beta for Mac computers is open for business.

The biggest challenge facing any third party version of Android is creating a simple path to installation. Anyone who has ever crawled the dark and confusing XDA forums as a rookie, and read the countless notes that no one but you is responsible for damaging your phone if something goes wrong, has experienced that twinge of doubt. If you damage your phone in the process of rooting or flashing it, you have voided your warranty and there’s no way to get a replacement from your carrier or manufacturer.

Cyanogen Inc decided to try and streamline the process with a highly visual installer that took care of all the heavy lifting, and now that installer has come to Mac.

Just like the Windows Installer that we tried out a couple of months ago, all you need to do is enable USB debugging on your phone, connect the phone to your computer via USB, and run the program. If your phone is supported, the application will run and when your phone reboots a couple of minutes later you will be running CyanogenMod.

If you aren’t familiar with putting your phone into USB Debugging mode, there’s an application you can put on your handset that walks you through the process. That same app, which is now available on the Cyanogen website, was previously available in the Play Store. It’s not a requirement for use, but it can help users who aren’t familiar with any part of the install process.

To join the public beta, head to the Google+ community and follow the instructions available there. Be aware that this is a beta, so the process may not yet be flawless. Based on our testing of the app on a Google Nexus 5 and an HTC One with the Mac installer, it works just as smoothly as the Windows version.